Shocking that you used a gameplay shot of Shulk standing in front of Alcamoth instead of the cutscene shot of Noah standing in front of Alcamoth that the game includes specifically to go out of its way to make that reference.
Aside from the matter of simple personal preference and the differing volumes of text in a 1997 game vs ones from 2010 onward (Jin and Malos are more complete, individual packages), Sephiroth is just harder to get a feel for than the others in this list imo. Because he's bigger and scarier and more full of hate than the comparison points of Jin and Malos, Sephiroth rarely lets you in like those two do. Cloud would never try and talk to him, to unpack or deconstruct him, as intimately as Rex does. The player doesn't get the same direct insights. So you have to actually stop and think why is he rampaging, what does he want to achieve by exceeding humanity and how does this interact with his defining turn at Nibelheim? Especially in the original game (ie without the elaborations from the Compilation) it's admittedly not the easiest task to pull out a definition of the man beyond 'scary lunatic.'
In FF7, after Cloud takes a dip in the Lifestream and is wheelchair bound, he actually name drops Xenogears during his ramblings, though I think it was botched in the translation.
Obviously I noticed a lot to begin with since its setting was so obviously a fantasy planet with undercurrent of sci-fi conspiracy, including discovering an
Drifting Soul is a song linked with any particular character learning not to fear themselves, their power and subsequently their place in the world. It plays for Mythra listening in on Vandham’s call to arms and finally deciding to appear after five centuries in slumber, for Nia taking a leap of faith by exposing herself as a flesh eater, and for Malos begging Rex to prove humanity's worth to him so that he can put his hatred to rest.
The only difference between the REX and REX+ is that Shulk removes the plate in the middle to open a Monado ring. Unless you mean Melia's staff made with the same technology.
Wait, there's an XCX freecam too? I looked before but never turned anything up. I hope it works in cutscenes, I'm in desperate need of better shots of the Vita's sword.
More limited because you can't do fancy things like disabling colour filter, fog, motion blur of backgrounds, but the actual camera movement/rotation/FOV options still work exactly the same so it's able to get much-needed clear angles of the Sword of Origin for example.
Eh, I saw a whole lot of people here predicting that Xenoblade 3 was going to be essentially a straight remake of Xenogears/Saga and include things like the UMN/collective unconsciousness/id/Zohar/etc., none of which turned out to be true.
Well...yeah? Obviously it's not going to be a literal remake with Fei, Weltall and the Xenogears objects as they always were. Nobody would have expected it to be either, since Monolith obviously do not own Gears or Saga. But what I mean is that because Xeno games are so iterative and specifically because we have the Perfect Works hanging over and informing everything in this franchise, you can point out XB3 as being Xenogears remade within the Xenoblade setting and stylistic lexicon. That's how these games interact.
Point of order, Mythra and Malos weren't created by the pre-experiment Earth. Rather, the technology to manifest Blades was kludged together by Klaus out of several pre-existing technologies in service of his Titan cycle. Mythra and Malos, for all their power, are merely two more manifestations of this new technology. But if they'd been awakened by monsters they could have ended up looking like Wulfric, while if they'd been awakened by anyone else (or even Amalthus and Addam at different times in their lives), they would look and behave completely different.
Technically, the way cloud wears it is the correct way if you want to use the sword most efficiently. Angeal used to wear it on the opposite side because that sword was very precious to him so he used the blunt side of the sword to protect the blade from wear and tear. And Zack also used to wear it on the opposite side to pay respect to Angeal.
Your concern has been noted and will be considered for the future. You are correct that it doesn't quite line up, however as you mentioned, reading vs. watching a video differs in time spent, and previous contests have suffered from long judging periods which causes some loss of inertia.
Hey, sorry to pester again but it's been about three weeks with no response to my other comment. I was intending to just let it lie and thus leave it up to the cosmic coinflip whether I actually get an answer that may or may not prompt submission, but this is something I've been curious about in past contests too, and cannot find a simple answer to. So I should probably push for clarification regardless.
I'm about 5 hours in and so far my impression is overwhelmingly positive, to a degree that surprises even myself. Admittedly I have very little interaction with this franchise, but the snippets I'd seen gave a...less than positive impression. Yet this feels like the JRPG I have been bouncing between games desperately struggling to find for years. It's so cinematic and everything just clicks. Even if it's far more linear (where I am at least, idk about later), the scale of the production and overall relaxed pace of gameplay calls to mind what I felt from Final Fantasy XII and Xenoblade 2. The option to use Auto battle and get combat similar to Gambits of XB2's auto-attacking really hammers in that vibe too.
Hmm. It's fine? No disrespect to Furirin or the composers obviously, this is a totally competent track. Moments where Ruby as a character is permitted to sing like this can be rare. But after the punchy Red Gem Wink and experimental Cotton Candy Ei-Ei-Oh, and when placed in in view of Chika's continually-refined broadway songs or Riko's striking new swing track, this ballad kinda fades into the background. At least in this cut, a hook isn't super apparent for me.
I tried my bet to tilt it to show the Fighters logo, but since they're all piled on each for comic effect it's probably the easiest one to miss. Never Let It Go is second from the bottom in the left hand.
Those are two totally separate symbols doing different things though and shouldn't be conflated just for both being sky-centric, and that's not touching upon the billion other bits of symbolism in Sunshine.
A decent amount? To varying degrees at least, and whether I've ever been good at them is another question entirely. But I do like them a lot, evidently. If asked I'll call platformers and JRPGs my favourite genre, but I also think that couch co-op fighting games are the ultimate gaming experience. I kinda have a serial addiction to purchasing fighting games...despite very rarely having the opportunity to actually play them with anyone else.
Shocking that you used a gameplay shot of Shulk standing in front of Alcamoth instead of the cutscene shot of Noah standing in front of Alcamoth that the game includes specifically to go out of its way to make that reference.
i forgot it 😎
This really what xenoblade fans telling themselves now huh?
Aside from the matter of simple personal preference and the differing volumes of text in a 1997 game vs ones from 2010 onward (Jin and Malos are more complete, individual packages), Sephiroth is just harder to get a feel for than the others in this list imo. Because he's bigger and scarier and more full of hate than the comparison points of Jin and Malos, Sephiroth rarely lets you in like those two do. Cloud would never try and talk to him, to unpack or deconstruct him, as intimately as Rex does. The player doesn't get the same direct insights. So you have to actually stop and think why is he rampaging, what does he want to achieve by exceeding humanity and how does this interact with his defining turn at Nibelheim? Especially in the original game (ie without the elaborations from the Compilation) it's admittedly not the easiest task to pull out a definition of the man beyond 'scary lunatic.'
In FF7, after Cloud takes a dip in the Lifestream and is wheelchair bound, he actually name drops Xenogears during his ramblings, though I think it was botched in the translation.
It goes both ways.
Obviously I noticed a lot to begin with since its setting was so obviously a fantasy planet with undercurrent of sci-fi conspiracy, including discovering an
Not to mention
Not only is
Drifting Soul is a song linked with any particular character learning not to fear themselves, their power and subsequently their place in the world. It plays for Mythra listening in on Vandham’s call to arms and finally deciding to appear after five centuries in slumber, for Nia taking a leap of faith by exposing herself as a flesh eater, and for Malos begging Rex to prove humanity's worth to him so that he can put his hatred to rest.
Wait, the Vita had a Monado-like Weapon?
Yeah. Xenoblade X does in fact have a divine sword. It's just not focused on all that much in its storyline.
Aren't there two "Xenoblades" in fc?
The only difference between the REX and REX+ is that Shulk removes the plate in the middle to open a Monado ring. Unless you mean Melia's staff made with the same technology.
Wait, there's an XCX freecam too? I looked before but never turned anything up. I hope it works in cutscenes, I'm in desperate need of better shots of the Vita's sword.
Wait it works now in xc3? I thought it would just crash
A recent revision added support yeah. Most features still crash it but it can disable HUD and move freecam.
Is the free cam as good as the one in de or limited also I desperately need to get a hold of the base 2.0.0 version of xc2
More limited because you can't do fancy things like disabling colour filter, fog, motion blur of backgrounds, but the actual camera movement/rotation/FOV options still work exactly the same so it's able to get much-needed clear angles of the Sword of Origin for example.
For sure.
Eh, I saw a whole lot of people here predicting that Xenoblade 3 was going to be essentially a straight remake of Xenogears/Saga and include things like the UMN/collective unconsciousness/id/Zohar/etc., none of which turned out to be true.
Again, echoing themes and ideas is not the same thing as a remake using the same lore. You even said it yourself:
Well...yeah? Obviously it's not going to be a literal remake with Fei, Weltall and the Xenogears objects as they always were. Nobody would have expected it to be either, since Monolith obviously do not own Gears or Saga. But what I mean is that because Xeno games are so iterative and specifically because we have the Perfect Works hanging over and informing everything in this franchise, you can point out XB3 as being Xenogears remade within the Xenoblade setting and stylistic lexicon. That's how these games interact.
Point of order, Mythra and Malos weren't created by the pre-experiment Earth. Rather, the technology to manifest Blades was kludged together by Klaus out of several pre-existing technologies in service of his Titan cycle. Mythra and Malos, for all their power, are merely two more manifestations of this new technology. But if they'd been awakened by monsters they could have ended up looking like Wulfric, while if they'd been awakened by anyone else (or even Amalthus and Addam at different times in their lives), they would look and behave completely different.
Nope wrong game, Xenoblade 1 lol
reading is hard ok
Technically, the way cloud wears it is the correct way if you want to use the sword most efficiently. Angeal used to wear it on the opposite side because that sword was very precious to him so he used the blunt side of the sword to protect the blade from wear and tear. And Zack also used to wear it on the opposite side to pay respect to Angeal.
Admittedly I was lazy by sweeping that under the "didn't know how to use it" remark, but
Theres also the scene when Zack confronts Sephiroth. When Zack pulls out the sword he puts the sharp side right to Sephiroth’s neck.
That's a really good example actually since
Link the reddit thread of your submission as a reply to this comment! Anything not linked here will not be in consideration.~~
[Essay]
Your concern has been noted and will be considered for the future. You are correct that it doesn't quite line up, however as you mentioned, reading vs. watching a video differs in time spent, and previous contests have suffered from long judging periods which causes some loss of inertia.
Hey, sorry to pester again but it's been about three weeks with no response to my other comment. I was intending to just let it lie and thus leave it up to the cosmic coinflip whether I actually get an answer that may or may not prompt submission, but this is something I've been curious about in past contests too, and cannot find a simple answer to. So I should probably push for clarification regardless.
I wanted to support the writing contest at least once since it's a super fun idea but then
I'm about 5 hours in and so far my impression is overwhelmingly positive, to a degree that surprises even myself. Admittedly I have very little interaction with this franchise, but the snippets I'd seen gave a...less than positive impression. Yet this feels like the JRPG I have been bouncing between games desperately struggling to find for years. It's so cinematic and everything just clicks. Even if it's far more linear (where I am at least, idk about later), the scale of the production and overall relaxed pace of gameplay calls to mind what I felt from Final Fantasy XII and Xenoblade 2. The option to use Auto battle and get combat similar to Gambits of XB2's auto-attacking really hammers in that vibe too.
I've always thought they look more like Aikatsu characters than anything else
Yeah definitely. I had the same thought. I'd definitely argue that 'Queendom' Lanzhu and her initial story arc of
Hmm. It's fine? No disrespect to Furirin or the composers obviously, this is a totally competent track. Moments where Ruby as a character is permitted to sing like this can be rare. But after the punchy Red Gem Wink and experimental Cotton Candy Ei-Ei-Oh, and when placed in in view of Chika's continually-refined broadway songs or Riko's striking new swing track, this ballad kinda fades into the background. At least in this cut, a hook isn't super apparent for me.
These cover arts are so darn good.
The full version of “I’m still” is almost hereeeeee. Gimme those early-2000s Disney channel vibes
It always reminds me of
I don't see Never Let It Go in there (his best theme by my finding)
I tried my bet to tilt it to show the Fighters logo, but since they're all piled on each for comic effect it's probably the easiest one to miss. Never Let It Go is second from the bottom in the left hand.
Your point
Metal Sonic is cool
Those are two totally separate symbols doing different things though and shouldn't be conflated just for both being sky-centric, and that's not touching upon the billion other bits of symbolism in Sunshine.
A decent amount? To varying degrees at least, and whether I've ever been good at them is another question entirely. But I do like them a lot, evidently. If asked I'll call platformers and JRPGs my favourite genre, but I also think that couch co-op fighting games are the ultimate gaming experience. I kinda have a serial addiction to purchasing fighting games...despite very rarely having the opportunity to actually play them with anyone else.
They're going to shut down the one anime streaming site with a good player and mobile app. Outstanding.